Economic Geography

Where were the geographers during this time?
The economic collapse of the early 1980s unleashed a search for solutions 
to local economic development problems. President Reagan’s inaction in the 
face of serious regional decline forced states and local governments to seek their
own solutions to economic crises. The rise of high-technology industries, the
much heralded ‘death of the big firm’, and the discovery of industrial districts
(and their presumed behavioral underpinnings known as flexible specialization)
emerged as interventions in local and state policy discourse. Entering the discus-
sion later (compared with Europeans), United States economic geographers
offered explanations for the problem of industrial transformation and in some
cases were also consulted about solutions to job loss and industrial decline.
During this time economic geographers provided some of the rhetoric that
fueled policymakers’ enthusiasm for things small, linked, clustered, and the like.
Ironically, geographers came to uncritically support these economic ‘discover-
ies’. A substantial body of literature from the previous decade uncovered little
relationship between industries that were co-located and had strong inter-indus-
try linkages and vice versa (Chinitz 1960; Cooper 1971; Cromley and Leinbach
1980; Erickson 1972, 1973, 1974, 1975, 1976; Fagg 1980; Gordon 1987;
Hagey and Malecki 1986; Hansen 1980; Haug 1981; Hoare 1985; Leone and
Struyk 1976; Mulligan 1984; Oakey 1979a, 1979b; O’Farrell and O’Loughlin
1981; Struyk and James 1976; Thomas and LeHeron 1981).
3
So enthusiastic was the adoption of districts, clusters and the like that when the
edges of the argument about Marshallian districts began to fray and careful research
demonstrated only loose associations among proximate firms, many economic
geographers ignored such findings. With much at stake and policy audiences
willing to listen to stories with happy endings geographers were surprisingly
uncritical of the largely unsubstantiated body of research on districts and clus-
ters. No doubt the places from which the original ideas emerged embodied the
fabled characteristics of linked industries, but the empirical verification of the
replicability of unique places was sorely lacking (Glasmeier 1987; Gordon 1987;
Massey et al. 1992; Roberts 1972; Segal et al. 1985; Shapero 1972; Shapero et
al. 1965). It would be several years before the peculiar non-economic factors were
unearthed and made obvious. By then, policymakers had uncritically bought
hook, line, and sinker the idea of clusters, linked industries, and industrial
districts. Criticisms were ignored and evidence went unheeded. It would be
almost ten years more before surveys and additional case studies offered enough
evidence to suggest the fragile nature of the original hypothesis. Unfortunately,
this compilation had not occurred before hundreds of communities, states and even
national governments adopted programs designed to privilege certain industries.
Belated commentaries on the likelihood of replicating unique place-based develop-
ment experiences came too late.
Our own zeal returned to haunt us as policymakers and other advocates
(Porter’s Institute for Competitive Inner Cities (ICIC), The State of Arizona, The
US Department of Commerce) ignored economic geographers’ critiques and
212
Amy K. Glasmeier

---

sought people who would tell them what they wanted to hear (for a critique see
Garvin 1983; Fuellhart and Glasmeier 2003; Glasmeier 1999). We unwittingly
became servants of a policy perspective that turned problems once described as
regional misfortune into the practice of regional competition in which few places
could hope to succeed. Economic geographers were listened to as long as they
said what others wanted them to say. During this period, policymakers chose to
ignore exhortations about probabilities and likelihoods. Those who criticized these
overly optimistic tales of development were replaced by others who would reiter-
ate what policymakers found palatable, if unattainable.
Debates about the efficacy of such policies did not lead to evaluation research
that would have put muscle behind the critique. Clearly, without the evidence
needed to support single topic strategies of development, economic geographers
can never be serious policy analysts. When policymakers stop listening to our
warnings, economic geographers should have turned to verifiable, critical analy-
sis. Unfortunately, policy analysis skills are required to stay active in this type of
debate. It is too often the case that economic geographers infrequently exercise
evaluation skills that can be brought to bear on public debate.